Dana Jiron, CMO

Product line changes and upgrades may bring current material to the end of their life cycle.

If you are sourcing a part that is critical in your application but coming to the end of its availability, these 5 tips will help you manage your production schedule.

1. Once you have received an End of Life (EOL) notification from your component manufacturer or franchise distributor, you can usually continue to purchase the product until the Last Time Order date if product is still available. Signing a support agreement with the part manufacturer or their authorized supplier prior to designing an expensive or crucial part onto your circuit board will help in getting continued support through the term of the agreement.

2. Monitoring potential EOL products on your Bill of Material (BOM) can be done by visiting the Product End of Life section of most manufacturers. Alternatively, you can subscribe to a BOM management software service that monitors the availability of your material.

3. Product longevity is an important part of the engineering and design process. Selecting material that comes with a 10 -15 year product longevity commitment from the manufacturer will ease the risk of EOL product shortages.

4. Some after market component manufacturers are purchasing EOL dies from major part Original Component Manufacturers (OCMs) for continued product support. Ask your salesperson if there is a company that is licensing the technology for future reference. Buying parts that are manufactured by an aftermarket licensing may be an expensive but is still a viable solution.

5. Buy from a trusted source (yes, like Inland Empire Components, Inc.) who specializes in providing you the material you need when you can’t source it from your regular supplier.

About Inland Empire Components:

Established in 1989, Inland Empire Components, Inc. (IEC) is a known, liked and trusted provider of procurement solutions to the buyers and engineers at original equipment and contract manufacturers.

IEC distributes the electronic parts and materials needed to keep manufacturing lines from going down. IEC specialized in challenging diminished supply chain solutions including spare parts, obsolete, hard-to-find procurement support for highly-allocated board-level electronic components as well as the commonly available or long lead time situations.

IEC provides a level of quality and service that exceeds the industry’s highest standards. With our local ESD compliant warehouse packed with millions of parts ready to ship today and billions more available from around the globe, IEC is recognized as a preferred vendor to some of the world’s largest OEMs and EMS Providers.

Like this:

Distributor and Procurement Service Provider Adds Premier (WBENC) Women Owned Certification
LAKE ELSINORE, California May 23, 2016–Inland Empire Components, Inc., an established local and global distributor of electronic components and procurement services, has received the nationally recognized Women Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) certification.

Thousands of major U.S. corporations and federal, state and local government entities recognize the WBENC certification. “With the many conferences, networking and match maker events offered by WBENC, it made sense to become a member. WBENC offers a safe environment for corporate procurement executives to vet new suppliers. WBENC certification doesn’t guarantee business or contracts. The certification is a foot in the door. Once you are inside, you still need to provide premium solutions, products and services,” said Inland Empire Components, Inc. President & CEO, Dana Jiron. “Our focus on making it easy for customers to do business with us includes the proper certifications. Many of our customers are performing on government contracts and we help them meet their diversity goals through the various certifications.”

About WBENC
The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), founded in 1997, is the largest third-party certifier of businesses owned, controlled, and operated by women in the United States. WBENC, a national 501(c)(3) non-profit, partners with 14 Regional Partner Organizations to provide its world class standard of certification to women-owned businesses throughout the country.

About Inland Empire Components, Inc.

Established in 1989, Inland Empire Components, Inc. is a leading stocking distributor with millions of legacy and new electronic components in stock located in their Lake Elsinore warehouse, with billions more available through an exclusive network of quality suppliers. Inland Empire Components, Inc. provides the most difficult to locate board level components including diminishing supply, MRO, and spares. The company services OEMs, EMS and distributors globally in the technology sector including aerospace, military, communications, medical, consumer and industrial industries. The company also provides sourcing and procurement and excess inventory solutions to large and medium corporations from their ISO9001:2008 and AS9120A certified facility.

Like this:

Freescale Semiconductor has announced that the MC68HC705C8ACFNE is not recommended for new designs as the lifecycle is declining. There is still limited supply in the market place with lead times up to 8 weeks.

Inland Empire Components, Inc. has a quantity available ready to ship in 1 – 2 business days of the MC68HC705C8ACFNE.

Like this:

Freescale Semiconductor announced on March 19th, 2014 the discontinuance of MC705C8ACPE Microcontrollers. All orders for the discontinued product must have been received by Freescale by the last buy date of March 19th, 2015. After the last buy date, Freescale would no longer accept orders for the MC705C8ACPE. Final last ship date by Freescale for the MC705C8ACPE is March 18th, 2016.

You can request a quote for MC705C8ACPE as Inland Empire Components, Inc. has a limited last time buy available for
sale.

Like this:

Inland Empire Components, Inc. (IEC) has in place a counterfeit avoidance program which meets industry standards for visual inspection.

We follow an extensive inspection checklist that includes reviewing part markings, packaging dimensions and X-Ray inspection.

Often, customers choose to inspect and test components in their own facility to their specifications. We work with third party approved test houses that provide counterfeit semiconductor detection utilizing methods designed to assist you in making a determination regarding component authenticity.

Third party services range from simple marking and X-Ray inspection to full AC/DC/Functional testing across the entire operating temperature range. Our test house partners provide quick turn times, competitive prices and superior customer service. Testing can be performed to your company’s counterfeit specifications or to generally accepted industry standards such as SAE A6081, SAE AS5553 and IDEA-STD-1010B.

There is an excellent free webinar available to watch presented by
SiliconExpert Technologies and Dr. Diganta Das of the University of Maryland CALCE Center on the subject of Counterfeit Electronic Component Detection & Avoidancehttp://www.siliconexpert.com/webinar_counterfeit2013

Purchasing electronic parts from part manufacturers and its authorized suppliers provides the lowest risk in parts procurement. However, you may encounter part obsolescence, lead time requirements, or unavailability of parts from authorized sources which is the reason parts are purchased from independent distributors such as Inland Empire Components, Inc. There is a need for authentication and screening of parts purchased from such sources to verify their authenticity.

Inland Empire Components, Inc. was one of the first independent electronic distributors to receive the CCAP-101 Certification by Component Technology Institute, Inc. (CTI), Huntsville, Alabama.

According to Elena Malykhina, Technology Journalist in Information Week, Government, DARPA Targets Counterfeit Electronics. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s SHIELD program aims to develop a method to authenticate electronic components. Elena writes that “A new DARPA program, called Supply Chain Hardware Integrity for Electronics Defense (SHIELD), will focus on the creation of a small component, or dielet, for authenticating electronic parts at any step of the supply chain. The agency is seeking proposals that would “revolutionize electronic authentication with potential scalability and advanced technology not available today.”

DARPA said the dielet would be inserted into an electronic component’s package at a manufacturing site or attached to existing components. Authenticity testing could be performed anywhere with a handheld probe, which would need to be close to the dielet for scanning. A smartphone, or another low-cost appliance, could be used to upload a serial number to a central server. The server would send an unencrypted challenge to the dielet, which would then send back an encrypted answer and data from passive sensors, indicating tampering.

Technology resulting from the SHIELD program would guarantee protection against threats related to counterfeit electronics, such as recycled components that are sold as new, according to DARPA. Other threats include unlicensed overproduction of authorized components or components that failed tests.

The technology would also help identify and reject sub-standard components that have been sold as though they were of higher quality or which have been labeled with a newer date of manufacture. Additionally, SHIELD technology would protect against clones and copies — often of low quality — and parts that have been repackaged for unauthorized applications.

If you are a fan of Marvel comic books and the movies based on many of the characters, this technology sounds like something out of science fiction. The reality is that military components will often have a self destructive mechanism embedded inside of them. Awareness of this fact should help to eliminate the danger of counterfeit electronic components.

Like this:

Today we are highlighting one of more popular obsolete parts that we have in stock ready to ship to you today.

The XC24C44PI is a hot selling Serial Nonvolatile Static RAM.

The XC24C44PI Nonvolatile RAM enables fast read and write access to any address and retains data when power is disrupted.

The Xicor “XC24C44PI” Nonvolatile RAM is used in all types of applications including medical devices, metering, industrial automation and automotive electronics. These parts are obsolete but still widely used by original equipment and contract electronic manufacturers.

Inland Empire Components, Inc. still has a significant quantity in stock of the Xicor XC24C44PI product and can deliver them to you usually within 24 – 48 hours.

Like this:

Are you ready to replace your current but outdated populated circuit board (PCB) with a new design?

If so, it may be time to re-engineer your old PCB. You can re-engineer an old PCB to current standards and replace obsolete components with new ready to purchase parts with project based reverse engineering. Often there is no limit on the board size or the amount of components whether through hole, surface mount or mixed.

Re-create lost or missing PCB manufacturing files or update an existing PCB with new capabilities. Reverse engineering enables you to take your current PCB and update it with a new circuit board that is structurally, functionally, and operationally identical to the board you are using now. Updating your old PCB has a number of benefits including utilizing up-to-date technologies, methods, and materials.

Unforeseen issues can occur in your organization that will necessitate reverse engineering your current PCB. If your engineer has left your company and no one else knows what to do with the files, a good reverse engineering service provider will take the files and convert them into industry standard formats. These files can be used to make prototypes and production quantities of boards.

If you are faced with a PCB supplier that has gone out of business you can get the board reverse engineered within 4 – 6 weeks and many times faster with a rush order. In order to copy or re-engineer a printed circuit board, every component on the board is identified and a draft bill-of-material for the project is created.

Best practices include a high resolution image of the PCB which is then blown up and mounted. The electronic components are taken off the circuit board and bonded to the photocopy of the circuit board. Values are measured for capacitors and resistors and notes are made on the bill-of-material. Once the BOM is complete, the electronic components are purchased. A calibrated scanner is used to scan the board to recreate the trace pattern which enables the new bare boards to be created. Once this process is complete and the assembled sample is sent and approved by the client, the final printed circuit board is used for duplication.